


Rationalization Versus Reality

by Masterweaver



Category: Infinity Train (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Post-mortem Simon, Spoilers, The New Apex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26235646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterweaver/pseuds/Masterweaver
Summary: It's a somber night in the mall car, and Grace has a lot on her mind.She's not the only one who can't sleep.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Rationalization Versus Reality

It wasn't a proper urn. The kids had tried, searching the mall car as rapidly as they could, but...

Well...

The fact the lava lamp had been undamaged, after everything Apex had done, was miraculous enough in itself.

It hadn't really been a proper funeral either. They'd just poured everything out of the lamp, into the tracks, and carefully gathered...

...gathered... the stuff into the lamp itself.

And when it was full, Grace screwed the top back on the lamp and carefully brought it back into the car, carefully set it down on the throne

(it was a damned _movie theatre chair,_ they'd just ripped it out and stuck a lot of winter gear on the back to make it look cool)

and she'd said...

Well, she'd tried to say something. Staring at that lava lamp that contained all that remained of her friend, she'd tried... repeatedly.

She'd tried to say how much she missed him, but was reminded of how little he cared for her.

She'd tried to say how determined he was, but then again that determination led to him deluding himself, trying to kill her.

She'd tried to say how he'd let his own desperation consume him, but something in her whispered that it wouldn't have gotten this bad if she'd been better for him...

She tried, and tried, and tried to start a eulogy, but... she couldn't. She couldn't even start.

Eventually Todd took her hand and led her aside, making the speech for them all. It was serviceable--how death meant that he was gone forever, how the gathering was more for those left behind than those who died, how they could learn from what happened to him, how it was okay to be sad or angry or both... Todd should have been far too young to make that sort of speech, but he did. Somehow, he did.

And now, with most of the Apex taking an uneasy slumber in a modified furniture store

(could they still even be called the Apex? Should they?)

Grace found herself still awake, staring at the chair and the lava lamp with...

....with....

It was easier, really, to think of it as just... stuff. There was no resemblance to--

well it wasn't like

she didn't

it was more that

\--she wrenched her eyes shut, clutching her head. "No, no no. No..."

No.

She couldn't just... avoid this. Not this.

She shouldn't have tried to avoid anything, really, but now...

(if she kept her eyes shut, she could remember the old Simon, the one who'd been her friend and helped her form the Apex)

(but if she kept her eyes closed, Hazel's disappointed face would rise up and stare at her and--)

Her eyes snapped open with a gasp--and the lava lamp was still there, still on the throne.

Filled with... stuff--

No.

With...

with...

...with... Simon's...

with Simon's ashes.

Grace had thought she'd run out of tears for the day but, apparently, there were still a few left. Or maybe they were the tears her body had started making for tomorrow, and she was using them early? She didn't know how tears worked, biologically. She'd stopped caring about them long ago, when it became clear that her parents didn't either

(outfits more recognizable than faces, the static muffling the words, consuming, enveloping--)

(IT WAS COMING OUT OF HER HEAD _IT WAS COMING OUT OF HER HEAD_ OH GOD WAS THAT BRAIN FLUID OH GOD _OH GOD)_

hands gripped the small table

heaving

the taste still so fresh in her memory

clenching

She stood, rushing toward the nearest restroom desperately and just, just made it before

Grace clutched the sides of the toilet for a minute or two, just... staring, staring at the bile that floated quietly in the bowel.

Eventually, she pulled the handle and watched it all vanish, watched it all disappear into whatever unknown mechanisms the train used to maintain... well, everything. All these years, and she still didn't understand how the train worked. The purpose of the numbers, only recently revealed... the way denizens were made, the way the train was run... what even was the point of the Ghoms? Did they just... exist? Without the train's input?

The train, the train, the train...

Grace sighed, leaning against the stall wall. "Fuck you, train. Just..." She rose a middle finger halfheartedly at the ceiling. "Fuck you."

She sighed, pulling herself up and walking out of the bathroom, back into the public space--and back, back to the table where she sat, and stared at the throne.

"Why...?"

She dragged her hands through her hair.

"Why... why do I still miss you?"

"I mean... you were evil," Grace pointed out. "Even ignoring how you treated the denizens, how you didn't get why Hazel was upset about Tuba... you locked me in my own memory, you... you tried to have me killed, then you tried to kill me, and then after I saved you you tried to kill me again--"

(a scared little boy, running from a weird dog-roach thing, of _course_ she had to save him--)

"And, and I wasn't even... It wasn't even me who killed you! It was a Ghom! I shouldn't feel guilty, it's your fault, I know it's your fault!"

(Was it his fault, really? Was it really his fault that he was so deluded, when he'd relied on her for knowledge, guidance...?)

"I... I miss you, and I hate it. I hate that I miss the man who tried to kill me, who mindraped me, who... who..."

Who made me turn on Hazel, she would have said

except

that was a lie.

Simon didn't do anything to make her do that.

She did it. To keep his trust, to try to keep her friend...

...her friend.

Oh, yes, she'd heard the kids gossip sometimes, about how she and Simon were A Thing. But she was a kid--

(she'd been eleven when she came aboard, and that was _seven years ago)_

\--she wasn't interested in romance, right? And even if she had been...

Even if she had been.

Would she have known, even if she had been? She'd never really learned what love looked like from her parents. Maybe she _had_ loved Simon--

\--the old Simon. The one who would meticulously gather and create all sorts of things.

...the one who always trusted her.

Always obeyed her commands.

Well...

...whatever else he was, he had been her friend.

And then he'd tried to correct her. Gone against her. Ignored her own viewpoint, left her trapped in her own mind...

...and when she'd caught up, he tried to kill her. Repeatedly.

"Damn it, Simon." Grace stroked the tears off her cheeks, averting her eyes. "What... why am I like this?"

"Um..."

Grace blinked, turning to look at the escalator and the girl standing on it. "Oh..."

"Sorry, I... woke up." The girl's eyes darted toward the urn for a moment. "Came out to... you know. Get something from the food court..."

"Yeah, that... that's cool. I'm okay with that."

"Right..."

And, of course, she went for the ice cream shop. How was it, really, that all the food was infinitely restocked in this car? The staff--back when there had been staff, before the Apex drove them off--always talked about deliveries and schedules and, yes, there were walk-in fridges and freezers and... they just never ran out. After seven years, Grace would have thought the Apex could have put a dent in the food, or at least seen some shifty denizen scuttling in and out in the middle of the night...

The girl returned with two sundae dishes, wordlessly putting one in front of her before she sat down a few tables away from her. Grace, mouth still warm from vomit, aimlessly prodded the chocolate and vanilla scoops with the pink plastic spoon.

"...I, uh... I don't know if I hate my dad."

After a confused moment, Grace turned to look at the girl. She was staring at the throne, at the lava lamp filled with ash.

A moment later, the girl chuckled. "Sorry, that was random, it... it's just, you know. You wake up in the middle of the night and... you eat ice cream in an abandoned mall on an infinite train, and your mind just... goes places."

"Mmmm." Grace nodded quietly. "Yeah, I've... been there." She shook her head, turning back to the throne. "Heck, I'm still there."

"...so... your dad..."

"Right..." The girl sighed. "He was... well, he never hit me, right?" She snorted. "Oh, wow, that sounds terrible. 'He never hit me.' What I mean is, all those big red flags, the ones that say super abusive parent, he doesn't have those. And I mean, he does..." She trailed off. "...he buys stuff for me. Expensive stuff. And he's there at all my shows. And he's always telling me how proud he is of me, how much... how much like my mother I'm becoming."

Grace nodded slowly. "...There's a but here, isn't there."

"He loves me, showers me with praise, gives me the absolute best of what he gives me." The girl smiled wryly. "But."

"There it is."

"But. I can't buy stuff for myself. No wallet, no cash, no card. He's always 'making sure' that my friends are good people. And, you know... I thought cars were cool, but he never bought me car toys, only dolls. I wanted to go into shop class, but it turned out we 'just couldn't afford' power tools. He loves it when I'm a good actor, loves it when he sees my sketches or my stories, but if I start rattling off tech specs he's... 'that's nice, sweetheart.' Not even mean, just... dismissive."

"Sounds..." Grace snapped her fingers a couple of times. "What's the word?"

"Misogynistic?"

"That's the word."

The girl shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. I don't know if it's misogyny exactly.... And you know, in a weird way, it'd be nice if he was _just_ a misogynist. One of those villains that come up in cartoons and cackle about 'oh, women are the weaker gender, they always stay in the kitchen, mwahahaha,' and then it would be obvious he was..."

She trailed off for a moment.

"...but... he's not evil, is the thing. He really _does_ love me. He really does want me to... be the best actress I can be. He holds me when I'm sad and, and listens... most of the time." There was a trace of bitterness in her tone. "I just can't have a life outside his expectations. And, it's..."

"...it feels wrong to hate somebody who's so important to you."

"Yeah."

"You know Simon was, like, eight months younger than me?"

The girl hummed. "Really?"

"Yeah, I found him when he was ten, and..." Grace sighed. "And... I told him things. Things that were wrong, but I didn't know were wrong. And he believed them and... we had adventures, and later we made the Apex."

She prodded at the ice cream again. "I... I don't know when he changed. I don't know how he went from my friend to..."

"...Anyway." Grace stood up. "What's done is done, right? I just need to move on."

"You haven't touched your ice cream."

"Not in the mood, really."

"Right... Sorry."

The girl frowned. "Actually, you know what, no, I'm not sorry."

"What?"

"Maybe ice cream was a bad choice, but you're here sulking and you need some sort of friendship and comfort and I don't regret trying that even if you just ignore it."

"Whoa!" Grace held up her hands. "Whoa, easy, I'm not ignoring it, I just..."

She tried to find the right words for a moment, before sighing and deciding to wing it.

"I'm just trying to work things out and I don't know what I'm thinking yet and, honestly, I kinda threw up a few minutes ago. Like literally, right into the toilet."

"Ew."

"Yeah. So... you know... ice cream _right_ after that--"

"Right, yeah." The girl made a face. "Yeah, I can... I can see how that would be a problem."

"So what are you trying to work out?"

Grace sighed, slumping back onto the escalator. "Everything."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Yeah, alright, sure."

"Am I a bad person?"

"...maaaaaaybe?" the girl offered with a cringe.

"I mean," she continued hesitantly, "you never tried to wheel a passenger, and you always tried to make sure everyone felt welcome in the Apex. You were really only bad to nulls--or, denizens, I guess. And... when that kid went away, the one that came with the metal girl, you... seemed sad."

"So I cared about humans," Grace said flatly. "Easy."

"...Simon didn't."

Grace looked up at her. "What?"

"Simon didn't care about us," the girl repeated. "He cared about rules. About how well we followed. Maybe our condition, that we weren't sick or anything. But not about what we wanted. The only person he ever seemed to really care about was you, and... whatever happened out there, he lost that. Or maybe he gave it up. I don't know."

"So it's my fault."

"No," the girl said firmly.

"But--"

"No," she repeated. "Simon is responsible for his own actions. It doesn't matter how nice he used to be. It doesn't matter how you felt about him. It doesn't matter that his death was..." She flinched, but continued on. "...that his death was the most horrific thing that I have ever seen and that all of us are probably going to have nightmares for the rest of our lives. He's the one that tried to kill you... that tried to turn us into killers."

She rubbed her arm. "Actual... murderers, I mean. Not just children obliviously breaking what they thought were toys."

Grace pushed herself up. "Hey--"

"If you're a bad person, then so am I. So is every last member of the Apex, down to the youngest child. Because we..." She swallowed. "We... hurt... a lot of nulls. Denizens. We hurt a lot of denizens, because we thought they weren't real."

Grace buried her face in her hands. "...I made the Apex. Simon helped run it, but I made it. I screwed everything up."

"...maybe." The girl shrugged. "But... we're all here, now. We can... move forward, beyond this. Together."

Grace looked at the lava lamp. "We're not _all_ here."

"He should still be here."

"What?" said the girl.

"He should--he should have a chance to--"

"HE! TRIED! TO! KILL! YOU! Multiple times!"

"He was a person!" Grace snapped.

"He was a monster!" she shouted right back.

"HE WAS MY FRIEND!"

"...He wasn't, in the end," the girl replied, her voice soft.

Grace huffed, looking away. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I know that he... that he abandoned me? That he decided I was a problem, that I wasn't who I was supposed to be?" And her cheeks were wet again, but at this point she didn't care. "I just keep thinking that maybe, maybe if I did something different, maybe we could have--"

"Maybe you could have," the girl allowed. "And maybe I could have stood up to my dad, and I wouldn't be on this train."

"That's not the point!"

"Then what is?"

"I--I miss him, okay?! I know it's not rational, I know it's not--but I just want..."

She pulled her knees in, keeping her face hidden.

"...is it so wrong to miss him?"

The girl sighed, sitting down next to her. "This whole situation is fucked up."

A breath curled in Grace's mouth, a snuffle that could have been a laugh if it wasn't so exhausted. "Yeah. Really is."

"...Grace..." The girl took a deep breath. "To hurt you, like he did... not just the trying to kill you thing, but what you're feeling now... he had to get in your heart first."

Grace didn't spare her a look.

"And I don't mean that everyone you let in is going to hurt you like that, most people won't, but... he betrayed you, Grace."

"...I betrayed him first."

"...What?"

"...We met a girl," Grace explained. "She had a number, but it wasn't glowing. We thought she was a passenger, so we tried to take her with us, but then... Simon... did something, and she ran out of a car to cry, and I followed her and..."

"...and?" the girl prompted.

"She turned into a turtle."

"Like, just poof, a turtle."

"No, it was--" Grace held out her hands helplessly. "It was this whole thing, where her face grew out and her skin became scales and she got claws and a shell. And she was freaking out and I... I promised not to tell Simon, because she knew that Simon--that he'd... wheeled her friend."

"Another passenger?"

"No, a denizen. Purple gorilla, horns on her shoulders." Grace shook her head. "He even told her, to her face, that she never had to worry about the null again. To this child. Her friend was dead and he told her he murdered her and--"

"--and you decided to protect a girl, who was already afraid, from a man who would kill her if he found out."

"...I could have told him," Grace admitted. "After he found out and Hazel went with Amelia. I could have told him then that I'd known, and... we might have fought, but he would understand."

"No," said the girl, "he wouldn't."

"You don't know that--"

"You're trying to absolve him."

Grace, slowly, turned to glare at her.

She didn't even flinch.

"...He was your friend," she said. "Once. It'd be nice if he could just magically be redeemed. He had multiple chances to back down, to change. But that's not the world we live in. Nobody's born evil, as far as I know. Everybody has to choose... and he chose to treat you, and us, like toys. We played his game, or we got... we got wheeled."

"Doesn't that make us evil?" Grace pointed out. "Because of how we treated the Denizens?"

"Two things: We never treated humans the way Simon did. And..." The girl looked at the lava lamp. "We chose to change. To become better."

"Or, well, at least I have, and I'm pretty sure with the way the paper cranes saved you you have as well--"

"Yeah," Grace said quietly.

The girl sighed. "Don't... try to redeem a man that chooses to ignore you. I tried once." She shook her head. "Wound up on the train."

"I still miss him."

"The him that he was, or the him that he could have been?"

Grace fell quiet at that.

The girl stood up, patting her shoulder. "I'm going back to bed. But... I think a lot of the kids would be happy to see you there when they wake up." She smiled sadly. "Let them know which of their nightmares are real."

Grace listened to her footsteps as she left.

After a moment, she stood.

She glared at the lava lamp.

Then she followed after the girl.


End file.
